


Unhear It

by Brainrots_brainworms



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Drugs, Gay, Gay Male Character, Insomnia, M/M, Medicine, Smoking, Video, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28883832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brainrots_brainworms/pseuds/Brainrots_brainworms
Summary: The "farmer", Cy, is a bit more than Sebastian bargained for.Sebastian didn't want to find the channel, he promises.(Tags to be updated as I write more)
Relationships: Sebastian/Male Player (Stardew Valley), Sebastian/Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Addicting Voice

He didn't mean to find it. Deep into a youtube scroll, well past curfew and everyone else going to sleep, Sebastian didn't mean to find it.

He didn't mean to see a familiar mop of bright cyan hair, or the silhouette of a familiar farmhouse, or that electric piano he'd thought was broken. 

He didn't want to click it, didn't want to watch his friend's private videos. Unfortunately for him, his hands apparently don't need his mind's permission.

The melody would be familiar if it was played on ukulele. As is, it takes Sebastian far too long to place (Help, by Pink Guy). The song had filled some of his worst, most melancholic days, wandering the town with headphones over his ears just trying to get his mind to shut up, to get away from his family. Cy's voice echoes as gameplay of some retro game that nobody in the comments can place fades in.

The video ends. He should click away. He wants to click away. He doesn't want to look into Cy's personal life, certainly doesn't want to listen to another heart-rending melancholic song reverberating through an all too familiar mouth. So why is he clicking on the channel, scrolling through nearly two years worth of his close friend singing, trying to find- something. Something else, something from before, something personal, he doesn't know. 

He clicks on an early video. Well before they met, before Cy even came to the valley. An electric keyboard sits on the boy's lap, just barely in frame. The video crackles and pops as he starts to play and sing. Sebastian doesn't even try to figure out what song it is (Sweet Hibiscus Tea by Penelope Scott), just listening to the voice. Somehow soulless and heart-wrenching and sobbing and numb all at once. There's no gameplay footage on this one, just Cy. It looks like he's in an apartment building, covered in posters and shelves of game memorabilia and comics and figurines and tools that haven't been put away and half finished projects. When he gets up to turn the camera off, he wipes at his eyes to remove invisible tears. His light eyes look so empty and shallow, glittering like the gemstones he often brings back from the mines.

Sebastian closes the page. And if he looks through the retro section on Steam for a while afterwards, that's just to find a new game to play. 

He needs a cigarette. Smoke flows up, staining the ceiling of his room further, heedless of what his mom might say when she notices. He explains it away with simple laziness. His feet don't feel like lead on the floor, he's over that. He told everyone he was done with the paralyzing emotions and thoughts and anxieties when he started taking medication. He just doesn't want to get up and go outside. Pure laziness. He's in control. (It only takes two songs to shake up your control of your own emotions? You're fucking pathetic and you know it.) Laziness, pure and simple. His meds are working. Why wouldn't they be, when they're so expensive?

If everyone buys his excuses but him, that's their problem.

-

He keeps coming back to the channel, keeps noticing more and more. He should stop coming back. He should stop noticing. Shouldn't notice that there are more bruises and cuts on Cy's body in earlier videos, even though the little mine rat is always, always, always injured nowadays, and how was he even getting hurt before the mines anyway? Shouldn't notice that the songs follow a pattern of getting progressively lighter in tone before suddenly taking a nosedive into depressing and restarting the pattern.

Shouldn't notice the precarious and dangerous places Cy is drawn to, like rooftops and the beach and the mines and the secret woods. 

Shouldn't notice Cy biting his hands when he gets frustrated with a puzzle in the library, or humming to himself with the same voice and songs that haunt Sebastian's nightmares and (unwarranted) dreams.

Shouldn't notice how often he's pulled to the channel, opening it again and again like Cy is the world's most depressing, forbidden siren.

He should stop coming back, but he can't. The pull of Cy's voice is even stronger than that of the nicotine some days, like his friend's channel is an addiction rather than something he shouldn't ever have found, should've clicked away from and forgotten and never come back to.

And some days, he sits in the mid-levels of the mines and listens to that haunting voice echo up, around, bouncing off stone and crystal before reaching his ears. The mines are a surprisingly pleasant place to smoke, on the colder levels. Not that anybody but him is likely to know. (Not that anybody but you is dumb enough to smoke in a beautiful place like this.) If Cy notices him, he doesn't say anything. Sebastian hopes he doesn't notice, doesn't see him in the light of those ever-glowing rings. He hopes he's good enough at noticing and hiding. 

Sometimes he wonders if he could get Maru to build him something. A sound-player, or an automaton, or a speaker, something he could code into and make sing for him in that beautiful, haunting voice. Much better than risking getting caught, accidentally liking a video or lingering too long or staring too hard. Much better than actually talking to the source of the voice, blushing and stumbling over explanations and requests and confessions. Much better than needing the real thing.

He doesn't ask her. He doesn't talk to Cy. He just adds a new step to his nightly routine. And somehow, miraculously, he doesn't get caught. He hopes.

He doesn't think about how he sleeps better to Cy's voice than he ever had to his mom's lullabies as a kid. And he definitely doesn't think about Cy's hands, thin fingers playing his body like a piano, making Sebastian into nothing but an instrument for the boy. Doesn't think about how that haunting, beautiful voice would sound against his neck.

Doesn't at all. (Fucking degenerate)


	2. Too little, Too late (the magic drugs chapter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cy does magic drugs. 
> 
> Sebastian does his best to he displeased. 
> 
> Nobody is fooled by Sebastian's attempt.

He talks to Cy. Not about all the things that he's noticed, not about the channel. But they talk ( _definitely not enough, why aren't you talking to him about anything important you imbecile_ )

Sometimes they don't talk for long, and Sebastian is left with recordings again. Days when Cy is busy or tired or went to bed at four in the morning because that's what he considers a reasonable fucking bedtime _(like you're any better)_.

Sometimes Cy comes to Sebastian when he's done in the mines. When he's too twitchy and high-strung and can barely hold his backpack, and he trusts Sebastian to take care of him. He rarely even remembers to knock. He always has some gem or trinket he found to offer, something glittery and dark that "reminded me of you, so I picked it up". Sebastian doesn't mention it to anyone, and Cy keeps bringing gifts. 

Once, Cy went away to the city. The singing videos slowed in their posting, without much free time waiting for things to open. It was just one week, but it felt like an eternity. Sebastian didn't get much work done that week.

When Cy got back, he seemed to have forgotten his limits. He ended up in Sebastian's room more often, clawing holes into his skull tee-shirt and walking far too quick. He forgot personal space, leaning into Sebastian and resting his hands on his friend's legs as if he didn't know what that did to him ( _why would he know what friendly affection does to you? It's not like he's been inside your degenerate mind_ ). It's not alcohol, he hasn't had any since inheriting the old farm. Coffee, and whatever other effects those weird recipes on Queen Of The Sauce have on him, are the only things that are even semi-likely candidates.

He considers going to The Wizard (you should), but if he gets whatever this is to stop then Cy will stop coming over. Stop mumbling nonsense into the fabric of that black hoodie that never fit Sebastian at all, stop leaning into Sebastian like an over-affectionate dog. Stop touching Sebastian in just the right ways to set him on fire. ( _Good, he should stop, you don't deserve him to be like this to you_ )

He knows it doesn't mean anything. His house is close, and they're friends. That's why it also doesn't mean anything when he doesn't take Cy home in this state, or try to figure out what's going on. He's just taking care of his friend. Nothing more, nothing less.

The heat in his face would beg to differ, but the heat in his face can fucking suck it. Just friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

The fact that he started to be able to work again when Cy came back and began posting again would also beg to differ. That fact can also suck it.

Maybe Sebastian should look into anger management that isn't telling his thoughts to suck it. Unfortunately, Sebastian has long since shredded that idea.

-

He does, eventually, go to the Wizard _(too little, too late. Bet he already figured it out)_. The problem, Sir Rasmodius figures out, is too much stress for a combat effect to do anything less than three hours of the effect. Couple it with the coffee and it's practically bottled steroids. Cy is told he can test once a week, if he feels he might be ready, to use a combat effect.

Cy doesn't listen. One week of calm, then going straight back to what he was doing. Sebastian wishes he could muster up the willpower to be disappointed or angry, but any negativity is instantly dissolved by those perfect hands on his body as Cy explains something about the mines that isn't really coherent. Yoba, Sebastian could listen to that voice for hours. The thought that Cy should start livestreaming crosses his mind more than once.

Sebastian researches the mines, combat effects, and everything else he thinks might help. 

Sources vary, but generally the consensus is positive human touch is the best way to calm down someone still experiencing a combat enhancement effect. That explains how touchy Cy is in that state, at least. Nothing can agree on why people get so talkative under the effect though. Maybe it's just something that it does, and it doesn't need to make sense. Sebastian doesn't really mind not having an answer on why they talk so much or how to get it to stop. The talking was always his favorite part of those evenings anyway.

The history on the Stardew Valley Mines are a lot less clear-cut. Generally, it's mostly from the Adventurer's Guild over on the other side of the lake. Sebastian… didn't think they knew what a computer was. It's all nonsense anyway, just useless information about how to kill definitely made-up creatures. What the hell even is a "Dust Sprite"? Isn't that from a Studio Ghibli movie? And why the fuck would they produce coffee beans? Some research on the things within the mines comes from the wizard, M. Rasmodius. Generally, Rasmodius' findings are ominous. "Long term exposure to essences (void and solar) can warp humans into something more dangerous and violent.". 

On a whim, Sebastian switches his location to Calico Desert. Dozens of papers and notes published by someone named Qi. They spend a lot of time contradicting everything Rasmodius has published. "While those who have never entered the Skull Cavern believe that Essence changes humans, I can assure you that the opposite is true. Only those who are truly unique in their capability for survival can procure Essence." And some time is spent actually writing about new information. "An interesting observation about Stardew Valley is that the area is rich in Stardrop Fruit. This fruit has interesting long term health benefits, including increasing stamina and increasing physical strength. While Essence does not fundamentally change a human, it is safe to say that consumption of a Stardrop Fruit will ultimately permanently change you."

That reassures Sebastian enough to stop reading and close the tabs. He lays in bed, listening to recordings of Cy singing as if that can stop him from longing. While it can't stop the longing, however, it can stop his alertness. He drifts off, and dreams of glowing hands holding his own, sharp teeth biting his lips, and glittery cyan hair resting on his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol uh don't expect me to keep this up but here! Have a chapter.
> 
> I also converted a Tumblr to use as a writing updates spot, so feel free to send me a message there:  
> [Tumblr Link](http://brainrots-brainworms.tumblr.com)


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